Get Ready For The Voice Top 20 To Take Over Your Life This Week

Well Voice fans, here’s to hoping none of us had anything important planned this week because we’re not going to have time to do anything except watch the first week of live shows on The Voice. Our favorite singing program is on three nights this week—Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday—for a grand total of five hours.

Just to review how we got here, each team has been narrowed down to five singers that have survived the blind auditions, battle round and knock-out round as well as the Olympics, World Series, and Wimbledon rounds. Just kidding about those last few. But they did go through a lot of rounds to get to this one. And apparently, the first round of the live shows is called the playoffs, so the World Series round probably is next.

The singers of Team Adam and Team Blake took the stage last night and Team Xtina and Team Cee Lo (who, BTDubs, was sans head tattoo and not sans sparkly hooded sweatshirt thing tonight) will follow tonight. Then on Thursday, the Top 20 will sliced down to the Top 12.

I have two thoughts on the voting process going into the Thursday elimination that I’m sure you’re all dying to hear: 1) It is the most genius thing in the world that the performers whose songs get bought the most on iTunes have their votes multiplied. I mean, that’s literally just money in the show’s pocket. Totally brilliant. 2) Don’t you think Team Blake and Team Adam kind of have an unfair advantage with the voting process? People have an extra 24 hours to vote for these singers than they do those on Tuesday night’s teams. Not cool, guys.

Okay, enough blabbering about the show’s set up. It’s time to relive some of Monday night’s top performances.

TEAM BLAKE:

I think I now know why Blake Shelton is a 3-peat Voice champ: this guy knows how to nail the song choice. If you give a good singer a song that’s bad for his/her voice, you’re basically handing that singer a bad performance. The right song with the right voice is magic.

Blake really nailed all of the song choices for his team, making it so, so hard for me to pick the best performances. Really all of his singers gave us some magic.

Nic Hawk, “Blurred Lines”

Here is a perfect example of how a song can make a performance. Nic Hawk is not one of the strongest singers this season. He is, however, one of the strongest performers, and this rendition of “Blurred Lines” does a fabulous job of highlighting that. Don’t worry, no foam fingers were involved in this performance.

Cole Vosbury, “Maggie May”

I was fully prepared to share Ray Boudreaux’s performance with you for Team Blake’s second artist, but honestly, Cole Vosbury’s cover of “Maggie May” was just…I don’t even know how to describe it. I think everything right in the world can be discovered while listening to this performance.

TEAM ADAM:

Unlike Blake, I must say that I really don’t think Adam Levine always does the best job picking songs for his singers. Like sometimes he nails it, but other times…yeah… Which totally bums me out because some of my favorite voices of the season are on Team Adam. I don’t want them to get voted off due to his poor song choice! For example, Grey and Preston Pohl. What was Adam thinking with those song choices? Having Grey sing Paramore’s “Still Into You” and Preston sing B.O.B. and Bruno Mars’s “Nothin’ On You” did not showcase the best of their voices. I’m all for pushing people vocally, but only if you’re pushing them in a direction that plays to their strengths.

That said, Team Adam still put on a couple of awesome performances. And now that I’m done ranting, you can go ahead and enjoy them:

James Wolpert, “A Case of You”

I don’t know what I enjoy more, James Wolpert’s take on Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You,” or Adam Levine’s man crush on him. I think I might like this performance just a bit better, but it’s a close call.

Tessanne Chin, “Many Rivers to Cross”

I leave you with the show stopper of the night…Miss. Tessanne Chin performing “Many Rivers to Cross.” She’s not just singing; she is sanging. And trust me, there’s a difference.

Team Adam and Team Blake do not have an advantage; each team is being narrowed down to three members so the teams are competing against themselves this week, not the other teams. Plus, the voting for these teams closed at 10am this morning, so all the artists get one night in which they can earn votes.

Caro

Also team Adam and team Blake had to go up against Monday night football! Are we sure they are going down to 3? Or are they possibly having America pick 3 per team and the coach saves 1? I can’t find this info anywhere!